Guit, Remorse, and Two Pink Lines
by rikkucheerio
Summary: GorenOC. After an unplanned night of eggnog with Eames, Bobby's thoughts on falling off the wagon. First person, written for the prompt "lines"


I'll start with what's broken. What's broken are the promises I made to Andy, to Grace, even to myself. I promised to quit drinking. Last night, I broke that promise. It's a promise I've broken in the past, several times, and most likely will break again in the future. It's a promise I should not have made because I can't keep it. I have no hope of keeping it. Breaking this particular promise is a function and a symptom of the disease. I have to admit--and accept--that I have a disease.

It was easy to break that promise. It was easy to keep going. After the first drink, it stopped mattering to me; the damage had been done already. Last night, I remember thinking I was getting what I wanted. I wasn't thinking about what I really wanted, what I could have if I'd only paid more attention to her. I just wasn't thinking. And that is what I thought I wanted.

It's a double edged sword, actually. I wanted to stop doing the one thing I needed to do most.

And that leads me to a self-inflicted reality check. Nearly a year ago, I bought a workbook whose name I'm not going to list in some effort at self-preservation, or at the very least, an attempt to keep some shred of my pride still intact. Needless to say, I've hardly done any of the exercises in it, most likely as a result of my insufferable arrogance. But tonight, I pulled it out and dusted it off.

I want this. **I want sobriety**.

_Do you feel any remorse from the ways that you have acted in your life? If so, explain that in detail._

I do. Immensely.

But that's not an answer. That's not a real answer.

For a real answer, I have to start somewhere near the beginning, somewhere near the end of October.

Andy and I planned to have three kids. She wants three and I'm happy to give them to her. So in October, we decided it was time to start trying for the second one. She took test after test and we tried and waited and waited and tried. And nothing. Real life started to worm its way into our schedule and honestly, I was beginning to think we'd have to be okay with one child. If that was what was laid out in the cards for us, it would have been okay.

But we both really wanted it.

And then I went out for drinks with Eames. I was fully planning on having eggnog minus all the usual accoutrements, but since what prompted the outing was a conversation about eggnog with rum, she ordered for me before I could specify I wanted mine without the rum. But this is where the blame shifts to rest squarely on my shoulders. I did nothing to help myself, and instead, made things worse for myself by actually drinking the damn thing. I wish now that I had turned it away and made sure to get something without any alcohol in it. But I did nothing. I was lusting after the soul-deep satisfaction that comes from taking a drink after a long drought. I wanted to silence the thought in my head that was begging for the burn of alcohol.

I was only thinking about that moment right then. The five minutes in front of my face.

What I should have been thinking about were the days to come, the what-ifs, the could-bes. I should have been paying more attention to Andy in the days leading up to yesterday. If I had been, I would have noticed; I may have suspected. I wouldn't have ruined it.

Again.

She's pregnant.

Again.

So as I sat staring at the lines of foam left on my beer glass, I wasn't thinking about Andy, or Grace, or the possibility of a new baby. I wasn't thinking about the two pink lines that would be the long sought after answer to a question we as a couple had been asking for two months. I was only thinking about myself and how many foam lines I could get under my belt that night.

And now, I sit here, after having been given the silent treatment all day, forcing myself to push through one exercise after another, writing my thoughts and answers down in lines. I wish I could do this over just as much as I wish I could redo the first time I heard those two words from her. I regret that I still haven't learned to look outside of myself for gratification.

I wish I had more self-control, but that's the nature of the disease--being unable to stop. I regret breaking a promise that already had fracture lines and fault lines in it.

At least when she told me this time, I was sober.


End file.
